sinks assessment)

• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Southern Ocean
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.684.391; http://solas-int.org/files/solas-int/content/downloads/Activities/Project+endorsement/CARBOOCEAN_summary.pdf

CARBOOCEAN IP ( = CarboOcean Integrated Project) aimed at an accurate scientific as-sessment of the marine carbon sources and sinks within space and time. It focused on the Atlantic and Southern Oceans and a time interval of-200 to +200 years from now. CARBOOCEAN was successful in determining the ocean’s quantitative role for uptake of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2), the most important manageable driving agent for climate change. CARBOOCEAN thus created new scientific knowledge as an essential foundation for a quantitative risk/uncertainty judgement on the expected consequences of rising atmospheric CO2 concentra-tions. Based on this judgement, it will be possible to guide the development of appropriate mitigation actions, such as management of CO2 emission reductions within a global context. CARBOOCEAN combined the key European experts and scientific resources in the field through an integrated research effort. The effort complemented other major research programmes on oceanic, atmospheric, and terrestrial carbon cycling and was linked to these programmes. The ultimate goal of Integrated Project CARBOOCEAN was to reduce the present uncertainties in the quantification of net annual air-sea CO2 fluxes. Particular emphasis was placed on the Atlantic Ocean and the Southern Ocean as the main deep water production areas, but also the World Ocean as a whole is considered. Target was to reduce the uncertainties by a factor of 2 for the world ocean and by a factor of 4 for the Atlantic Ocean. The IP delivered description, process oriented understanding and prediction of the marine carbon sources and sinks with special emphasis on the Atlantic and Southern Oceans on a time scale –200 to +200 years from now. Specific objectives were: 1. Description and quantification of the CO2 air-sea exchange on a seasonal-to-interannual scale for